


If You Step Up to the Counter

by adspexi



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Coffee Shops, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/F, Mentions Of Infidelity, bill's fine, canon-typical death scene, homophobia mention, it's not bill, not a coffee shop AU though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 03:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15452142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adspexi/pseuds/adspexi
Summary: "Look," Eve says, "My marriage is on a break that’s looking more and more like it’s permanent, my job’s a dead end, the only good thing in my life right now is a twentysomething barista who keeps writing her number on my drinks."This is not a coffee-shop AU.





	If You Step Up to the Counter

Wonder of wonders, Eve is heading to work early today. She’s been straight to work, stayed late, and then headed straight to bed, for a week now. It’s probably not good for her to be at the house— their house? Her house? How do you tell when a “break” becomes a— well. She hasn’t been at home much, whoever’s home it is.

She’s got time to head to Starbucks, maybe get Elena a croissant and chat for a bit, before she buries herself in paperwork. Eve heads to the counter on autopilot, looks up for a moment to order a double latte, and keeps looking.

There’s a new barista today. Mid-twenties, maybe, flawless skin, the kind of naturally perfect eyebrows you see on Glossier models. She’s staring at Eve like she wants to eat her alive, she’s got tiny rainbow earrings on, and she’s… asking what Eve would like to order. For possibly the third time.

Eve admits to herself that she may have been staring.

“Double latte, please,” Eve says, and the barista nods.

“We’ll have that out for you in a moment,” she says, turning to make the drink. She handles the espresso machine with casual assurance. She has her sleeves rolled up to reveal capable forearms. She is pressing the lever for a triple.

“Excuse me,” Eve says, as the barista hands her the latte, “I think you made me a triple, but I only paid for a double—”

  
“Check your receipt,” the barista says, winking.

Eve does. “Okay, it says I paid for a double, but I saw you make it a triple, and—”

  
The barista takes Eve’s cup (she’s holding Eve’s hand to do it, not that it means anything, but her hands are so smooth) and turns it to reveal a precisely written phone number below Eve’s name.

“Oh,” Eve says. “Oh, right, I—”

  
“No pressure,” the barista says, “but if you’re looking, maybe give me a call.”

She lets the cup and, by extension, Eve’s hand, go, and turns to help the next customer.

Eve doesn’t call that day, but she doesn’t throw the cup away either.

* * *

 

Eve doesn’t see the barista (Amy, her name tag says Amy, how had Eve been staring so long that first day and not gotten her name?) every day, but she’s always there on Mondays, and she always knows when Eve needs a pick-me-up. At first it’s just extra shots, then one day she charges Eve for a plain oatmeal and hands her a Berry Good Bircher instead. Some days it’s free fruit, or a new drink she thinks Eve will like. Eve still hasn’t called; Amy still hasn’t pressured her.

A few weeks into this routine, Eve walks into Starbucks on a rainy day looking like a drowned rat. She forgot her umbrella, the humidity is wreaking havoc on her hair, she’s pretty sure that any day now Niko is going to come up with an ultimatum, and she just. She really needs this.

Amy is shoving a paper bag at Eve before Eve even gets a chance to open her mouth.

  
“What—” Eve starts to say.

“Pain au chocolat,” says Amy. “On the house.” Her expression softens a little. “You looked like you could use something sweet.”

And that’s. Eve doesn’t know what to do with that. She takes the bag and turns to leave and, shit, she forgot to get the coffee she came in for, but she can’t go _back._

She’s off her game all morning, but then, so is half the office. It’s a miserable grey day and nothing’s going right. She stares at her screen, hoping that if she focuses hard enough on the Montenegrin ambassador’s visit she can just forget about the seething morass of uncertainty that is her personal life, but that’s a bust too.

She skulks into the break room to grab her dry, Niko-less sandwich, when she feels a tap on her shoulder.

“Hey,” Bill says, “Can we talk?”

“Sure, about what? I’ve nearly wrapped up the protection detail on—”

  
Bill sighs. “Not about work. About this.” He waves a hand at Eve’s pathetic sandwich, dripping hair, and general demeanour of dismay. “You’ve been down for weeks now.”

  
“It’s just an awful day today,” says Eve. “I mean, the entire office is on edge. Elena won’t go outside until this rain clears up, and Frank’s been jumpy all week.”

“We’re not talking about Frank, are we?” Bill says.

Eve is silent.

“Look,” says Bill, “I’ve been trying not to pry, but whatever’s going on with you and Niko—”

  
“I don’t know if there even is a ‘me and Niko’ anymore,” Eve says, and suddenly she can’t stop talking. “My marriage is on a break that’s looking more and more like it’s permanent, my job’s a dead end, the only good thing in my life right now is a twentysomething barista who keeps writing her number on my drinks, and I just, I don’t know where any of it is going. Something has to give, but I don’t know what and I don’t know when.” She puts her sandwich back in the fridge; she doesn’t have much of an appetite.

“‘Her’ number,” Bill says carefully. “Is that new?”

  
“Yeah,” says Eve.

“Is that the part that’s stressing you out?”

“I don’t know. It’s a component, I guess, but the bigger thing is, what about Niko?”

  
“You’re on a break,” says Bill.

“Ross and Rachel were on a break.”

“And you’re not a sitcom character, are you? You two haven’t lived in the same house for, what, a month?”

  
“Five and a half weeks,” Eve admits.

“You just said this might be permanent. Why not look for new horizons? I’m not saying go dip yourself in honey and throw yourself to the lesbians, but if you’ve got a chance with this girl, go for it.” He pats her on the shoulder. “Hey, maybe she can teach you how to actually make a sandwich.”

  
“Piss off,” Eve says, but she’s smiling.

* * *

 

Eve checks and double-checks Amy’s number. Looks at two, three coffee cups, to make sure it’s the same across all of them. She thinks about calling, maybe; she knows that she would rather call, but Amy’s the age where she probably prefers texting, and anyway, who picks up on calls from strange numbers?

So then it’s just Eve and her phone keyboard, judging her, as she writes and deletes openers. “Hey, it’s me”— too abrupt. “This is Eve, from Starbucks”— what if she had a coworker called Eve? Finally, she sends something.

**Hi, Amy, it’s Eve, the one you give free coffee**

**although that might not help**

**idk, maybe you give coffee out to more people**

**Which is fine! I’m not saying we have to be coffee-exclusive or anything**

**I’m the woman with the hair**

Jesus Christ, Eve thinks, throwing down her phone in disgust. Amy is going to _read_ those. Amy is going to look at the nonsense Eve sent her, and she’s going to realize that Eve is a disgusting quintuple-texter and probably transfer across London just so she never has to see Eve again.

Eve’s phone beeps.

_hi eve! you got the right number_

_to what do I owe this honour?_

Eve knows she should try to be witty, she should pull out a line, but she hasn’t flirted in years.

**You asked me to text you** , she eventually sends back.

_I sure did :)_ _  
_ _what do you wanna talk about?_

She could make small talk, or ask what Amy does to make her skin so bright, or where she gets her jewellery. But she’s texting for a reason and it would be— she doesn’t know, disingenuous, or something, not to make that reason clear.

**Do you want to go on a date?**

_I’d love to :D_

_What times are good for you?_

**I get off work at five tomorrow, so around then?**

_great, I’ll be free then too_

_you work near my work, right? we could stop by that park_

**Sure**

**What were you thinking we could do?**

_coffee? ;)_

* * *

 

Amy walks out of Starbucks with a chai cream frappe, which she hands to Eve— “No coffee after two, right?” she says— and a bottled drink for herself.

“Coconut water?” Eve asks when she sees the label.

“Look,” says Amy, “I have tried every drink in that shop, I can tell if the beans were roasted a hair too long or if somebody used sugar free syrup by accident. I’m taking a break. Besides,” and now her tone is conspiratorial, “Emma’s on today, and she’s a new hire.”

“Well, if your drinks are at risk,” Eve says, trying and probably failing to play along.

“Plus this stuff is supposed to be good for you, right?” Amy cracks the bottle open and takes a sip. She winces. “Well, with a taste like that, it better be healthy.”

The park between Amy’s Starbucks and MI5 isn’t very big. It’s got paved paths leading through tall, winding shade trees, with a fountain in the middle. Amy leads Eve to a bench by the fountain; they sit down with a bare inch separating Eve’s knee from Amy’s.

“So,” Eve says, “I just realized I don’t know… anything, I guess, about you. I mean, you have my last name and my coffee order, and I’ve got jack.”

  
Amy grins. “You don’t have _nothing_. My name is Amy, I work at Starbucks, and,” she pauses, looking at the bottle in her hand, “I really, truly loathe coconut water.”

“It’s a start,” says Eve.

“Okay, what else? I’m twenty-five years old, my last name’s Wilson, I dropped out of UCL, and I’m bisexual. That’s the basics.”

“Oh, you’re—”

  
“You don’t, you know, have to know just yet,” Amy says. “Took me a while to figure out, and I started pretty young. But tell me something, fair’s fair.”

“Well,” Eve says, “My name is Eve Polastri. I was born in Connecticut but my dad was British, so I came back for college— criminal psychology.”

“So you’re, like, Will Graham?” Amy asks. “Half the Sunday paper on the wall with a ball of twine, catching criminals at their own game?”

“I wish. It’s just paper-pushing right now. So, you said you dropped out of UCL?”

Amy nods.

“What were you studying?”

“Modern languages. French and German, which would have made a killer resume in 1940, but turns out it’s hard to sell three-quarters of a degree.”

“Can I ask what happened?” says Eve.

“Well.” Amy stretches back, getting ready to tell the story, and her knee rubs against Eve’s. Eve barely even notices. Really. “So for my programme, you spend the first two years in London, and then the third is study abroad. I was supposed to spend the first semestre at the Sorbonne and the second in Berlin, but you know how it goes. I was young, it was Paris. I met a girl and, well, I never made it to Germany.”

  
“So why aren’t you in Paris now?”

“My parents are pretty old-fashioned, and they were paying for my degree. Then they found out I was dating— I think the way they put it was, ‘some lezzie from across the Channel—’ and suddenly they weren’t paying anymore.” Amy shrugs, but it’s too studied a movement to be natural. “I don’t know if they were madder that she was a girl or that she was French. So I called some friends, pulled a few strings, and I ended up back here pouring coffee. Not what I’d meant to do with my life, but London’s better than home.”

Eve doesn’t know how to process that. Sure, she’s heard plenty of stories like Amy’s, but the way Amy tells it is off, somehow. It’s like she’s practising for the part of “Village Bisexual Who Made It Out:” performed exquisitely, but still a role.

“That’s too bad,” Eve says.

“I mean, compared to you anyone’s life would look a shambles,” says Amy. “Yeah, you’re playing modest, it’s cute, but criminal psychology? That’s the big leagues.”

  
“It’s really not. I cut the red tape for the people whose jobs are actually interesting. I’m a mid-level bureaucrat who’s probably never going to level up, and that’s fine, I guess, but everything in my life is just— just _fine_.” Amy’s looking at Eve with concern, but Eve’s on a roll now. “My job is fine. My house is fine. My husband… Christ, I don’t know. There’s nothing to be mad at, he’s nothing to be mad at, he really does love me. He’s caring, he’s sweet, but…”

  
Amy leans closer. “But you don’t want sweet, do you?”

“I don’t know what I want.”

  
“I have a couple of ideas.”

* * *

 

Eve couldn’t say how long the walk to Amy’s flat is, or what neighbourhood they’re in, or how many floors up it is. She’s caught between staring creepily at Amy’s face as she talks about study abroad hijinks, and listening to the low, constant mantra in her mind: _what are you doing why are you here you shouldn’t you couldn’t you can’t._ She forces it down. Niko is doing his own thing. She is doing her own thing.

“And it turns out,” Amy says, laughing, “he had the stoat the whole time!” Eve pastes on a smile, but Amy frowns. “You weren’t listening, were you?”

“I just get too in my head sometimes. It’s nothing important.”

  
Amy takes her hand off of Eve’s waist; Eve hadn’t realized it was there, but she resents the sudden absence. “If you want to back out, it’s no shame, you know.”

“No, it’s fine. I want this. I want you.”

“Well, lucky for you,” says Amy, “we’re on my floor.” She unlocks the door to reveal a ramshackle studio apartment, which— she bends over a tangle of wires for a moment, looking for a switch— is softly lit with fairy lights. All the furniture looks mismatched and secondhand, but somehow the contrasts go together: the sleek mid-century pieces only complement a fussy chaise. The only brand-new thing in the flat, shining and out of place, is the fairy lights. Eve supposes they’re fitting for a young woman’s first place, but they ruin the theme Amy has going.

“So here we are,” Eve says, not knowing what to do.

Amy closes the door. “Here we are. In my flat—” she takes a step closer— “after a date—” another step— “which you asked me out on.” She’s close to Eve, so close Eve can count her eyelashes, but she’s not touching Eve anywhere. “So what now?”

She’s not moving anymore. Eve realizes that she isn’t going to come any closer, that Eve is going to have to make the first move. And Eve can’t tell Amy what she wants next— she isn’t sure she knows what’s supposed to come next— but she can lean in.

She does. She tilts her head a little, and her lips brush Amy’s, and they’re so soft, everything about Amy is perfectly polished and maintained, and then the two of them are kissing. Amy kisses like she’s teasing: there one moment and then letting Eve take charge.

There’s a hint of tongue and then it’s gone, and Eve’s the one who goes deeper. Eve’s the one who gets her hands in Amy’s perfect shiny hair, who’s pulling at Amy’s shirt, who’s got her against the wall. Eve’s the one who’s trying to get Amy to quit fucking pulling back. To catch her, and keep her, and see what she finds.

And then Amy goes to unzip Eve’s pants, and Eve freezes.

“It’s not that I don’t want—” she says. Her hand is still on Amy’s ass.

“Hey, it’s alright,” Amy says. Her voice is a little rough, like an accent’s slipping through; maybe she’s from the North. It’s gone when she says, “If you want to go slow, we can go slow.”

Eve pulls back. “It’s stupid. It’s just, my husband.”

“The sweet guy you can’t find a good reason to leave?”

“That’s the one.”

“Maybe wanting a reason to leave is good enough.”

“I’ve practically left already. Or, he’s practically left me, it was mutual, but the point is, we haven’t broken up yet. We’re on a break, but we haven’t broken up.” She brushes a hand against Amy’s cheek. She thinks she’s still allowed that. “And I don’t want to be unfair to him or you.”

“So, slow,” says Amy.

“Until I end it for real. Which, if I’m being honest, won’t take that long.”

Amy sighs. “I don’t suppose you’ll be staying the night?”

“I don’t think so.” And Christ, Eve is absolute shit at this, Amy’s keeping up appearances but she has to be disappointed. “You’re not mad, are you?”

“What? No, not at all.” Amy leans forward a bit. “Maybe I had some other ideas, and maybe you were sending out some mixed signals, but this is hardly the worst date I’ve ever been on.”

“Low bar there.”

Amy’s smiling, thank god. “You have no idea. The first week I spent in Paris, there was this guy who fancied himself a living re-enactor and— well. A story for another day.”

“Monday, maybe?” Eve says.

“Are you sure about that?”

“I am. Really. I know what I’m comfortable with now, we can get a proper meal and maybe do more of this.”

“Same time, same bench?” says Amy.

“I’d love to.”

* * *

 

But when Eve walks in the door that Monday, Amy’s not at the counter. “Took her break early,” Emma the replacement barista says. “Not sure for how long.”

Amy was right, Eve thinks; Emma’s latte is wrong, somehow, and it puts a pall on her whole morning. She can feel the energy draining out of her as she walks into MI5—

And is met with a crime scene. There’s a cluster of people gathered on the office floor, with more standing around. Some of them are screaming. Desks and chairs are askew, and as Eve gets closer, she can hear a sickening gagging noise.

“Can’t you do that any faster?” Bill is yelling at Elena, who’s kneeling over the body on the floor.

“I can’t do compressions faster, that’s the bloody point of them. Look,” Elena says, her attention now on the body, “you can get through this, we’ve got you, the ambulance is on its way. Just hold on, it’s going to be alright, just— _fuck,_ ” and the choking noise stops.

“There’s got to be something,” Bill says. “Maybe if we find a defibrillator.”

Elena sits back up, and Eve sees that it’s Frank on the floor. “That wouldn’t clear his airways, and that’s what he needs. Needed. I think he’s gone.”

“What happened?” Eve asks.

“He came in fifteen minutes ago looking perfectly normal,” says Bill. “Said hello to Elena, drank a bit of his coffee, and then collapsed on the floor.”

“Poison?”

  
“That’s what we’re thinking,” Elena says, and grabs Frank’s cup from the floor. “Look, he got almond syrup, if it were cyanide he couldn’t taste— are you alright?”

  
All baristas have the same handwriting, Eve thinks. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the writing looks familiar. It’s probably a harmless coincidence and she should stop watching so much true crime.

But. Eve knows from the replacement that Amy had been working today. There’s the weird attitude about her personal history. The way she was so perfectly put together. That one, brief hint of an accent.

Eve supposes she should be happy that she’s high enough up to be honeypotted.

“Look,” says Bill, “this is a shock for everyone, and anyway the paramedics are going to want room. Or forensics will, I guess. You weren’t here when he fell, you don’t need to do anything. Go get some air.”

Eve knows that Amy, if that’s her real name, is far gone by now. Even if she weren’t, it would be patently insane of Eve to go to the park they’d agreed on. What does she think she’s going to find? A crazy barista assassin, sitting on the bench and making conversation?

She still goes, though.

Amy isn’t there. Eve doesn’t know whether she’s disappointed or relieved, but the park bench isn’t empty. There’s a note on the bench in plain white paper, with Eve’s first name on it.

“Sorry I had to run, baby. Something came up on the Continent and I had to head back. Call me if you’re ever in town.”

Here’s what Eve knows, in the end, about Amy-not-Amy: she used to work at Starbucks. She hates coconut water. She’s murdered Eve’s colleague. She’s living in Paris, probably. And Eve still has her number.

**Author's Note:**

> I have never been to England, this fic is not Brit-picked, and all research was done on Google. All geographical and spelling inaccuracies are my own, and since I nearly wrote "living re-enactour" and "defibrillatour," there are probably some errors to be found.  
> The title comes from the Broadway classic, "Taylor The Latte Boy." [ My favorite is Alan Cumming's version. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmP9NkuY1Bo)  
> They go to the Starbucks on Horseferry Road in Westminster. All menu items are accurate, at least according to the Starbucks website. The coconut water Starbucks carries is Innocent Coconut Water. Villanelle picked it because she thought "Amy" might drink coconut water, but also because she couldn’t pass up the joke.  
> The Date Park between Starbucks and MI5 is St John’s Gardens.  
> I know Villanelle is acting way out-of-character here, but that’s deliberate. Amy is a role she’s playing, even with Eve. And for the record, Villanelle didn’t set out to honeypot Eve; she just saw a hot mid-forties woman with amazing hair and shot her shot.


End file.
